Whom do you trust with your dollars? COLUMBIA, Mo 4/6/15 (Op Ed) -- Former State Rep. Chris Kelly said he didn't "believe in witches" Thursday night, scolding an audience at his bellicose best (or worst). Voting against Columbia Propositions 1 and 2 just because they don't trust city administrators or Council members would make audience members "witch hunters", Kelly carped.

His debate opponent at Keep Columbia Free's Last Word election forum that night, Boone County For Liberty spokesman Steve Spellman, argued it's dumb to hand tens of millions of dollars to people you don't trust.

Trust -- a word that appears on every U.S. dollar -- needs restoration before local officials get another dime, Spellman said. Made sense to me.

But to Kelly -- representing the two propositions' chief boosters -- the "you can't trust City Hall" argument was a witch hunt directed at poor souls like city manager Mike Matthes.

There's a little something for everyone in this panoply of litigation, from people who distrust police to citizens who distrust City Hall's approach to development. The sheer volume of litigation in such a short time is unprecedented. It does not say good things about city leaders who want more money.

9. The Ginny Chadwick Recall. If ever there was a political environment that screamed "We don't trust you because you won't listen to us," it was the environment around First Ward Councilwoman Ginny Chadwick, who resigned rather than face recall. When Charles Dickens wrote The Pickwick Papers, the term "Pickwickian" took flight, referring to a person like Mr. Pickwick -- simple, generous, a little stout.

"Chadwickian" has taken its place in Columbia, referring to a city government so tuned out, its citizens must file hundreds or thousands of signatures just to be heard.

After weeks of talking about it, KFRU Sunday Morning Roundtable host Al Germond insisted City Hall's enormous cash stash exists -- but with an important purpose. His two guests, Columbia public works director John Glascock and Water and Light director Tad Johnsen, grunted grudgingly in the background.

The city needs all that money as "collateral," Germond explained, to secure bank loans and bond debt. But if the city has that much money, why does it need debt? I don't borrow money if I already have it. Do you?

Even more importantly, why does City Hall need more money from me?

7. The Missing Depreciation Fund. The Number One infrastructure issue identified by Columbia's Downtown Leadership Council (DLC), City Hall's missing Depreciation Fund is a doozy.

Mandated under Section 102 of the City Charter and City Ordinance 27-44, the Depreciation Fund would -- if it existed -- have set aside tens of millions of dollars over the years to replace aging electrical and water delivery infrastructure. It's like a long-term household emergency fund, where you put aside money to replace an aging roof.

But city officials have never created a Depreciation Fund, instead using extra Water and Light for pet projects like the "shovel-ready" land in Reason 6.

So the city has $3 million to spend from water and light customers on development land -- up from $2 million a year ago -- but has no money to maintain electric infrastructure unless voters pass Prop. 1 Tuesday?

5. The Big Infrastructure Lie.

By now, you've probably heard what everyone in CoMo is calling the Big Lie: city manager Mike Matthes' and Mayor Bob McDavid's declarations that Columbia has "no more infrastructure" -- no sewer, water, or power lines, and nary another cop to fight crime -- to accommodate any new development (read: more student apartments), especially downtown.

But the City Council hasn't stopped approving student apartments downtown since city leaders started floating the lie in December 2013, mostly to get TIF approval. Angry about the lie, citizens launched a petition effort to reverse the largest of those projects -- Opus -- that delivered two petitions with thousands of signatures.

3. The Opus Debacle. If anything is emblematic of the Student Apartment-Garagezilla Industrial Complex that has taken over Columbia, it's the debacle involving Opus -- at its heart, a public protest over a really bad infrastructure deal city leaders made with a shady, out-of-state builder.

Citizens delivered thousands of signatures protesting the deal -- that Opus pay only $450,000 for infrastructure it needs for a new downtown student apartment -- not once, but twice. By law, the signatures should have either killed the project -- or forced Opus to pony up millions, not a few hundred thousand.

But city management and the City Council ignored both the referendum petitions and forged ahead. Now, they want to send us the bill.

2. All the rate hikes we've already had. These articles guide the way: